Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/24

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14
HENRY CLAY.

by the nullification movement, and thus as a victory by nullification. Calhoun, for this reason, was willing, and even eager, to sacrifice the possibility of some material advantage for the honor and the future of his cause.

To quiet the alarm of the frightened manufacturers, Clay, when introducing his bill, labored hard to prove that it was a protection measure. Some of the arguments he employed to this end were very curious.

“There are four modes [he said] by which the industry of the country can be protected: First, the absolute prohibition of rival foreign articles; second, the imposition of duties in such a manner as to have no reference to any object but revenue; third, the raising as much revenue as is wanted for the use of the government and no more, but raising it from the protected and not from the unprotected articles; and, fourth, the admission, free of duty, of every article which aided the operations of the manufacturers.”

“These,” he said, “are the four modes for protecting our industry; and to those who say that the bill abandons the power of protection, I reply that it does not touch that power, and that the fourth mode, so far from being abandoned, is extended and upheld by the bill.” He would, as he said, have preferred the third mode as a general policy, but he recognized that the manufacturing industries could be protected by putting the raw material on the free list while reducing duties on everything else. He further set forth that what